Nazi Attack Called ‘ridiculous’ by Catholies

December 17, 1934

Although disclaiming any friendship for the Jewish people, Vaterland, influential Swiss Catholic paper published in Lucerne, denounced the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” as a rank forgery and poured scorn on the Nazis for their anti-Semitism.

“The ‘Protocols’ have long been known as a forgery,” the paper asserted, “and no one would ever have bothered with them if they had not become the basis for the Hitlerite program. It furnished a new opportunity for the sons of Wotan to make themselves ridiculous in the eyes of the world as they have so often done during their short rule.

“It is typical of their spirit that in order to conceal their own deficiencies they must find a scapegoat. In the last century it was the Jesuits. Now it is the Jews. One need not be a friend of the Jews to realize this.”

Solomon ibn Yahya ha-Zaken sought in the thirteenth century to check the growing love of luxury among his co-religionists to avoid incurring the envy and hatred of the Christians of Spain.